Wednesday, February 09, 2011

Rail to the future

- it'll never actually get built. Between the logistics, the hassle of unions, the environmental groups that will be bitching up a storm, the different states and their laws and whatever.... it's never going to happen.
- if by some miracle they hurdle all that and actually DO build it. there's DEFINATELY no fucking way it gets done for the price he's quoting. If my years in government contracting taught me ANYTHING, it's that the first price agreed on is never the full cost.
- This isn't to say that this isn't something that SHOULD be done. America always needed a European-style rail system. The problem is, we're way more spread out than they are and we value using our cars more.
- With our airlines unwilling/unable to reduce cost or reduce the pain-in-the-fucking-ass factor of using them being able to jump on a quick and reliable train might be nice.
- Reality is, there going to be too many hurdles for this to ever see light of day. Too many hands looking to dip into the honey pot. Too many groups wanting a say in how this gets done. It just won't happen.

I understand the Obama administration's desire to do this, and I applaud them for thinking big I truly do. The problem is, he wants to do some grand public works projects like they did back in the old days. Like building Hoover Dam or something. It's ambitious but this isn't the old days. Regulations are different. We don't get things done like we used to. Back in the day if we were trying to get a road built and a bunch of hippie fags came along and said we can't do it because we might harm mother earth, well we'd just kick those pussies in their fucking heads and build the fucking road. Now? We actually listen to these pricks.

oh and another reason this won't happen. money. The GOP will never give him that kind of money to burn. KIND of rightly so. Right for the reason of, they know damn well it's going to go up in smoke and we can't afford to burn money. Wrong for the reason of being vendictive assholes (which they've been doing with increasing frequency).